The Fourth Man

"onaniershow"

Same great gear, new sense of futility

Misplaced and/or erased, until I found a ratty cassette in the late 2000s, the follow up Fourth Man CD, tentatively titled “onaniershow” was written between 1994-96, and hurriedly recorded and mixed in about a week. It was left unfinished and unreleased at the time. Since the cassette dub of the lost digital master was pretty beaten up, no amount of re-mastering could iron out all of the trademark cassette wobble.

At this point, T4M had basically become a solo side project to working in Numb, and it’s equal parts painful and amusing to hear me flail around.

Once again, as a “bonus”, superfluous extended liner notes about this time period are available in the “onaniershow” section, with plenty of technobabble and audio from live shows.

Sexting... with tears in my eyes

This sort of raises the question - Is a failed imitation still flattering?

I am periodically compelled to pay sloppy tribute to my stylistically formative years - the early 80s. Fortunate or not, “New Romantic” synth bands like Ultravox, snippets of Visage, Alphaville, Heaven 17, and Yaz come to mind, also the moderately healthy diet of movies like Blade Runner, Videodrome, and Liquid Sky. In the early days of The Fourth Man my band mates probably would have quashed the idea, but no one gives a crap now, so please feel free to cringe at/enjoy the kinder, gentler side of T4M. Oh, and those “pitchy” notes I’m not quite hitting? Those are “blue notes”. Respectfully, fuck you, Auto-tune.

…And if the other kids on the playground make fun of you for being a robot, remind them that it’s repliCAN, not repliCANT.

Then poke out their eyes.

- Mr. Collings

The original self-titled T4M CD, released in 1994 is now available to stream on this site and to download through Band Camp.  In the T4M 1994 section we have included extensive production and biographical notes written by David Collings, with an afterword by Gabriel Abney. Also included is additional content, photos, unreleased tracks, early versions, and alternative takes. It’s more than you ever wanted to know about the original period of activity for T4M from the late 80s to 1994.

In anticipation of our older material getting dusted off and made available, I figured posting this little nugget from the past would be appropriate.

Back 1996, I accidentally said "yes" to "doing" a "remix" of one of our older tracks, but quickly realized that I didn't really have anything resembling a studio to do it in. I pulled together the old files for one of our simplest songs ("Dare"), took them into the bedroom, glued on some mismatching feet and wings, slapped them in the face, gave them drugs, told them to stand up straight, and sent the results off down the runway. Viola - a remix!

Because people do bad things to other people to make god happy.

Not to pound our pulpits too hard, but please enjoy this zesty little addition to our more recent repertoire. Gabriel and myself have had many discussions about this whole…um… “god” thing, and sure, hey, faith? You gotta have some, but maybe let’s keep the Kool-aid cyanide free.

Also (I’m just saying here), perhaps attempting to legitimize acts of intolerance, cruelty, and mass destruction by propping them up on some sort of debatable ideology or faith is maybe a bit dishonest when basic compulsions like greed, fear, and ignorance are more likely motivators.

Or maybe you’re just an asshole

You might notice a new track uploaded for your listening pleasure. It's called Fulley Human. You can comment on our Soundcloud page.

More soon. Well, soon-ish.

T4M-G

...We've Posted Another Damned Song About the Singularity.

 In our defence, CIRS 3 is an aptly named reboot of CIRS 2, which came out on our 1994 CD. Naturally, CIRS 2 was a reboot of CIRS, which was written in 1993, so technically the song was written 19 years prior to Fulley Human. In juxtaposition, I find it sadly amusing that our lyrical maturity has stayed at pretty much the same level for nearly two decades.

T4M-D